The Surrogate

by Henry Wall Judith

  The McGrafs. That was the family who’d frozen to death after the sheriff evicted them. But what did people expect? That they could stay on indefinitely without paying their taxes? It wasn’t his fault that dumb-ass McGraf decided to leave in the middle of winter without first checking the weather report. Even if his generator was broken, everyone should have a battery-operated radio for emergencies. Or he could have listened to the radio in his truck—if it had a radio. Surely the man could have gotten the weather report somehow. He could have asked the sheriff for another day or two or taken shelter with a neighbor. There was no excuse for putting his family in danger like that.

  Or maybe it had been like this most recent storm. Kelly said it hadn’t been predicted to come this far north. Somehow Gus knew that Jamie Long had listened to the weather report before she left—for all the good it did her.

  Gus walked through the house. Faded wallpaper was peeling from the walls, and tattered remnants of curtains hung from some of the windows. Mrs. McGraf had tried to make the place pretty.

  He needed to stop thinking about the McGrafs, though, and focus on Jamie Long. Judging from the pile of ash in the fireplace, she had gathered a lot of wood and been here for a significant period of time. Right under Kelly’s nose. Once again he was all but overcome by the urge to blame Kelly. To berate her.

  But he didn’t want Kelly going crazy like Montgomery. He needed Kelly to keep things going at the ranch now that Montgomery was gone.

  He walked into the larger of the two bedrooms. Had Mr. and Mrs. McGraf been happy in this room, he wondered.

  And he wondered how tall a man Mr. McGraf had been.

  With all his riches and power, Gus had never experienced true love and joy with a woman. But he had experienced something just as precious when he was with Sonny. A pure, unselfish love that went all the way to bedrock.

  He hadn’t kidded himself into thinking that he was going to love Jamie Long’s baby with anything close to what he had felt for Sonny. Every time he saw the baby, he would think of what he’d had to do to the kid’s mother. But he wanted his sister to have Sonny’s baby to love and raise and to pass off as her own if that was what she wanted. And human nature being what it was, Jamie Long would not have been able to resist blackmailing Amanda or selling her story to the highest bidder.

  The closest thing to joy he was going to have for the rest of his days was making Amanda happy. If there was a hell, he already was going to burn in it. One more major sin wasn’t going to make it any worse. What he had to do now was figure out how to find Jamie Long and Sonny’s baby.

  “We checked all the hospitals within a hundred-mile radius,” Kelly told him. “And I swore out a warrant with the county sheriff accusing her of stealing money and jewelry.”

  “Call the sheriff and tell him that you were mistaken,” Gus said. “I will handle the search—privately. As far as anyone on this ranch or in this county is concerned, she left and was never heard from again.”

  What he needed to do now was crawl inside the girl’s head. What were her needs?

  Gus took one more look around the pitiful little dwelling, then walked out onto the porch and pulled his cell phone from his pocket. The message on the tiny screen informed him that service was not available. Which irritated him. Even if the population density in Marshall County wasn’t significantly higher than that of the moon, it was ridiculous not to have reliable cell-phone service.

  He motioned to Kelly and headed for her vehicle.

  After she dropped him off at the ranch house, he went straight to his bedroom, where the phone line was secure.

  A man’s voice answered.

  “I’m at the ranch,” Gus said. “I need you to come right away.”

  “Is this official or unofficial business?”

  “Unofficial,” Gus said.

  Then he sat staring at nothing.

  Montgomery. It was hard to believe that she was really dead. She had always been there for him. Always. He shouldn’t have yelled at her. He’d been yelling a lot lately. The pompous, swaggering ignoramus they’d put in the White House thought that he should actually be in charge. If Gus hadn’t been so aggravated with him, he wouldn’t have lost his temper with Montgomery.

  Gus did not allow himself to peer over the edge of the open casket as he lit the candles placed around it. With the flickering candlelight penetrating the shadows in the vaulted hall, he brought the stepping stool from the library. Without it, he would not be tall enough to kiss Montgomery’s cold dead lips. And he needed to do that. Not for Montgomery, but for himself. Maybe such an act would make him feel better.

  She looked ghastly.

  He touched her cheek. It felt like cold rubber.

  He sucked in his breath and bent forward to plant a kiss on her lips. “I am so sorry,” he whispered.

  Now the only person in the whole world who loved him was his sister.

  He had waited until right before he left for the ranch to tell Amanda. She was still in bed, a coffee cup in her hands. Gus told Toby he needed to talk to his sister alone.

  Amanda took one look at Gus’s face and put the cup on the bedside table. “What is it?” she asked, patting a place on the bed beside her. The bed was low enough that he was able to seat himself next to her with some degree of dignity. He took her hand in his and kissed it.

  He didn’t believe in euphemisms. People did not “pass away” or “depart this earth.” But he could not bring himself to say the d word. He took his beloved sister in his arms and whispered to her, “We’ve lost Montgomery.”

  Amanda gasped and pulled away, her eyes wide as she stared into his face. “She’s not…”

  Gus nodded.

  Amanda screamed and began pulling at her hair and clawing her cheeks, leaving angry red marks. Toby came rushing back into the room. “Get the hell out of here,” Gus yelled, grabbing his sister’s hands. He couldn’t stand to see her like this. “No, my darling, please don’t do that to your beautiful face. We still have each other. We will always have each other.”

  Finally she calmed herself enough to ask how Montgomery had died. Gus considered lying to her but decided that she would discover the truth sooner or later and said, “She went out to the cemetery in the middle of a snowstorm wearing only her nightgown. They found her next to that little tombstone where a stillborn baby is buried. I think the baby must have been hers and Grandpa Buck’s.”

  That had set her off again, with anger creeping into her tirade. How could Montgomery do such a thing at a time like this? “I need her to help me with the baby,” she wailed.

  Gus didn’t have the heart to tell her that Jamie Long had disappeared. He would let her digest Montgomery’s death first.

  At first Amanda insisted that she was coming with him to the ranch so they could bury Montgomery together. But he reminded her that she supposedly was in the final weeks of her confinement for what had been billed as a difficult pregnancy and it would seem irresponsible if she did such a thing. “But it’s Montgomery,” she wailed.

  Before he left Victory Hill, Gus had informed Toby that he was under no circumstances to allow Amanda to come to Texas and that he would find himself divorced, penniless, and minus some body parts if he did.

  Gus took one final look at Montgomery’s lifeless face, then climbed down from the stool, sat down on it, and buried his face in his hands.

  “I am so sorry,” he said again. “So very sorry.”

  The crying was less satisfying than he wanted it to be and it was chilly in here, so he blew out the candles then climbed the stairs and headed for the tower door.

  He wanted his mother to put her arms around him even if he had to beg her.

  After leaving the midwife’s house, Jamie drove to the local Wal-Mart and, with Billy in the carrier and the carrier in a shopping cart, hurried her way through the store, trying to remember all the items on her mental shopping list. She selected assorted articles of baby clothing and a couple of packages of receiving bla
nkets and wash cloths. Then she spotted a cloth sling designed to carry a baby across an adult’s tummy and tossed it into the cart. She found a knitted cap for herself, selected a couple of nursing bras, then headed to pharmaceuticals for the bottle of rubbing alcohol and cotton balls she needed to clean the baby’s cord stump. Next she located the hair dye and selected a shade called “burnished chestnut.” Last she selected a pair of scissors suitable for cutting hair. Her long blond hair and height were the two most noticeable things about her appearance. She couldn’t do anything about her height, but as soon as she had a chance, she would do something about her hair. In the meantime, the cap would have to do.

  Once she had loaded the baby and her purchases into the car, she stuffed her hair inside the cap then drove into downtown Guymon and turned into the ATM lane at the Bank of the Panhandle. She inserted the ATM card that she had never used and was relieved when the machine accepted her PIN number. Her money was still in an account at the Austin bank. Almost $2,000 remained of the original $10,000 advance and, with no job and a baby to care for, she was going to need every penny of it.

  The ATM machine allowed her to withdraw only $250. She then drove to City Bank, where she was allowed $500.

  Next she drove around looking for the library.

  Only a few cars were parked in the library lot. Jamie unfastened the infant carrier from its base, carried her sleeping baby inside, and headed straight for the computers.

  First she looked for classic-car dealers. As much as she hated to part with it, she feared that Gus Hartmann already had people searching for her car. She surfed around a bit and found one site full of friendly advice for selling worthy older cars and a warning against randomly driving onto just any secondhand car lot. That said, the site recommended a number of reputable classic-car dealers.

  The baby was waving his arms. Jamie calmed him by rocking the carrier with her foot.

  Next she searched for Joseph Brammer’s telephone number and found a listing in the Austin white pages. With a pounding heart, she used a pay phone in the foyer to place a call but got a recording informing her that the number was no longer in service.

  Back at the computer she tried the business listings in Austin. Then she Googled his name but found too many matches to deal with. Next she tried to locate a listing for attorney Joseph Brammer in numerous Texas cities then finally gave up. There was no telling where he had opened his law practice, she realized.

  She knew that his grandparents had moved to a retirement community in Georgia, but she couldn’t remember the name of the town. Hopefully, though, she could find a listing for his parents in Houston. She had met his parents on several occasions but either had never known or had forgotten his father’s first name.

  There were dozens of Brammers in Houston, but one listing jumped out at her. “Arthur S. Brammer.” Joe’s middle name was Arthur, and she was certain that Joe’s grandmother had referred to her son-in-law as Art.

  Rocking the carrier was no longer working for Billy, and she carried him out to the car. He nursed vigorously for a time then obligingly fell back asleep.

  Jamie tucked him back into the carrier and headed back to the pay phone. A woman’s voice answered.

  “Mrs. Brammer?”

  “Yes?”

  “My name is Jamie Long. I hope I have the right number. Do you have a son named Joe?”

  “Yes, I do, Jamie. You used to live across the back fence from my parents in Mesquite. I remember you well and was so sorry to hear about your grandmother. We all thought a lot of Gladys. You know, dear, Joe tried to track you down last summer. I remember him saying that you seemed to have dropped off the planet.”

  Jamie’s heart soared. Joe had been looking for her.

  “I’ve been trying to get in touch with Joe, too. His Austin number is no longer in service.”

  “Joe took his last semester of law school abroad—at Oxford,” Mrs. Brammer said. “Then he and some of the young men he’d met at Oxford decided to bike around the Continent. When winter came, Art and I thought for sure he’d head on home, but he and his companions headed south—for Greece.”

  Mrs. Brammer paused a second or two before continuing. Jamie had a sense that she was not going to like what followed. “Joe signed on as a crew member on a tramp steamer, Jamie. His last phone call was from some island off the coast of Turkey.”

  Jamie found herself having terribly conflicting reactions. God only knew when she would be able to talk to Joe. But trekking around Europe didn’t sound like something a married man would be doing.

  “So, Joe is not married?” she dared ask, trying to keep her voice a careful neutral.

  “No, dear, he’s not married. I always thought he was waiting around for you to grow up, but he got sidetracked with Marcia, who is a lovely girl, and they really seemed to care about each other, but I think she got tired of waiting around for him to get on with things.”

  Joe was not married. Not married.

  Jamie realized that she had been holding her breath. She let it out before asking, “So, when do you think he’s coming home?”

  “Believe me, we ask him every time he calls. And his father lectures him about how it’s time for him to settle down and how risky it is nowadays for Americans traveling abroad. Joe’s all but promised that he’ll be home in time for his father’s birthday in June, but I’m hoping it will be sooner. We do miss him so.”

  “Is there any way I could get in touch with him?” Jamie asked.

  “Not that I know of. He was e-mailing his grandparents every few weeks from places called cyber cafés, but they haven’t heard from him since he’s been on the ship. Is there anything Art and I can help you with, dear? You sound so forlorn.”

  “No, really I’m fine. The next time Joe calls, tell him that you talked to me,” Jamie said, disappointment displacing joy.

  “Where are you, Jamie? And where in the world have you been? Before he left for Europe he checked with UT, but you weren’t enrolled for the spring semester. And while he was in England, he searched for you on the computer—which I don’t understand at all. Finally he decided that you must have signed up for the Peace Corps or something exotic like that.”

  Jamie took a deep breath. Joe had been looking for her. Really looking for her. “It’s too complicated to explain on the phone,” she said.

  “But you have to be living someplace. Where are you calling from?”

  A man and woman were coming through the front door. They looked down at the baby in the carrier parked at Jamie’s feet and smiled. “A pay phone in another state,” Jamie said, lowering her voice. “I’ll try to call you back in a day or two and tell you where I can be reached.”

  “You can’t even tell me the name of the state! Are you in hiding or something? You sound so tired, dear. Are you all right?”

  The sympathy and concern in the voice of Joe’s mother was too much for Jamie to bear. She choked up, unable to speak for several seconds, unable to hold back sobs.

  “Oh, my goodness. You poor child. How can I help you? Please tell me where you are. Art and I will come to get you. Or wire you money. Send you a plane ticket. Just tell me what you need.”

  “I’ll be fine. Really I will. I’ll talk to you soon. Okay?”

  “No. I want you to promise me that you will call back tomorrow with a phone number where we can reach you.”

  “I’ll try,” Jamie said and hung up the phone. She wondered if the Brammers had caller ID. She should have warned Mrs. Brammer not to tell anyone except Joe that she had called. And her husband. That would be okay. But no one else. She rubbed her forehead and tried to tell herself once again that her fears could very well be baseless. But how could she know for sure?

  Chapter Twenty-five

  JAMIE SAGGED AGAINST the foyer wall by the pay phone. She wanted to carry her baby back into the nice warm library and sit in an easy chair for a time to ponder her conversation with Joe’s mother—to replay Mrs. Brammer’s words, turning them over
and over in her mind and examining them from every angle as one would a handful of pleasing pebbles gathered from a creek bed. Jamie had no idea when she might see Joe again or hear his voice. But he was not married.

  Even so, she must put thoughts of him aside and decide what she was going to do next. She would get back to them, though.

  With no way of knowing when Joe would return home, maybe she should find another lawyer.

  She imagined sitting across the desk from an attorney. Imagined the incredulous look on his or her face as she tried to explain the predicament she was in. And what if in the process of checking out her story, the attorney alerted the very people who were looking for her?

  Joe wouldn’t think she was crazy. He would realize the threat against her was real.

  She had always been in love with Joe. She could admit that now. It had not been just an adolescent crush.

  She had tried to cure herself of Joe, telling herself that he was nice to her because he felt sorry for her. Sorry that her parents were dead. Sorry she didn’t have cute clothes and wasn’t popular and lost her one shot at being special when she hurt her knee and couldn’t run track anymore. But now Joe’s own mother had indicated that his feelings for her were not based on pity.

  Jamie knelt and touched her baby’s unbelievably soft cheek with a fingertip. “Let’s go, my little Billy boy,” she whispered.

  She stopped at a Conoco station on the way out of Guymon. She paid for gas, a cup of coffee, and a cheese sandwich, then—with an ever watchful eye on the car and its precious cargo—studied the map of Oklahoma taped to the wall. The Oklahoma-Kansas line was only thirty-five miles away.